On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 06:09:03 GMT, "john hawkins"
wrote in
:

Come now. He's supporting HIS constituents

Yes. Senator Stevens has demonstrated support of his constituency in
a very arrogant, openly inequitable, and shortsighted way.

Because S. 1300 supports the imposition of direct _user_ _fees,_ it
opens the door for Congress to seek additional revenue via the
imposition of inefficient user fee funding in future legislation. It
is the issue of the administratively inefficient user fee funding that
Senator Steven's constituency (and all aviators) should be concerned
with, as it represents the camel's nose sliding under the tent for all
US ATC users.

Stevens had an opportunity to kill user fees as a source of funding,
and instead of recognizing that the cost administration of such a
revenue stream would likely reduce the amount of funds available after
the costs of administering such a boondoggle to insignificance, he
completely overlooked this larger issue, and was barely able to see
beyond his own self-interests.

This exposes Senator Stevens as an arrogant and inept politician with
the same feeble powers of insight as our nation's president. Clearly
Stevens has no business contributing to any Congressional committee.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp...&nav=menu510_2
"I don't like the user fee concept, but the way it's been worked
out now it is a fair thing," Stevens said.

Who is going to collect user fees? What will be cost of collecting,
marinating records, and enforcing user fees? Will user fees increase
the size of government?

I tried to email members of the House Transportation and Infrastruction
Committee
see http://transportation.house.gov/Earmarks/index.shtml then
http://transportation.house.gov/aviation/index.shtml


Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to direct your contact to the
Senate committee instead of the House?

for the members list of the subcommitte on aviation committe on
transportation and infrastructure only to discover that the members only
respond to their constituents.

You'll find a list of House Commerce Committee members he
http://transportation.house.gov/about/

You'll find a list of Senate Commerce Committee members he
http://www.senate.gov/comm/commerce/...embership.html

Here is a list of the Senate Commerce Committee on Aviation:


http://www.senate.gov/comm/commerce/...bcommittee.pdf
Senate Commerce Committee Subcommittee Assignments – 109th
Congress Subcommittee on Aviation:
Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), Chair
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) Ranking Member
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI)
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) Senator Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)
Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Senator Gordon H. Smith (R-OR) Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Senator John Ensign (R-NV) Senator E. Benjamin Nelson (D-NE)
Senator George Allen (R-VA) Senator Mark L. Pryor (D-AR)
Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH) 11. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)

So you have to write YOUR congressman who may
or may not have any aviation interest and hope he passes your feeling on.

It's better than no input at all:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contac...nators_cfm.cfm

Distressing when addressing a National Issue.But then If each member
received over a million emails he would not have time to do anything but
read them.. This would irratate those put money in his re-election fund.

I claim, along with Mark Twain, that we have the best government money can
buy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .
How do these arrogant, self-serving, simpleminded politicians manage
to get elected? Doesn't Senator Stevens realize that his token
exemption will be overturned as soon as the bill is enacted? Doesn't
he realize that he has become the first evidence of the user fee
proponents' divide and conquer strategy?


STEVENS TRIES TO EXEMPT ALASKA PILOTS FROM USER FEES

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, vice chairman of the Senate Commerce,
Science and Transportation Committee, voted against the
Nelson/Sununu amendment that would have stripped the $25 user fee
out of S.1300, the Senate's FAA reauthorization bill, but he
secured an exemption for many Alaskan aviators. The hotly debated
anti-user-fee amendment, supported by general aviation lobbying
groups, was defeated by the committee by Stevens' tie-breaking
vote. "I am concerned that this legislation as originally drafted
places an undue burden on too many small carriers in rural parts
of America, including Alaska," he said in a news release

(http://stevens.senate.gov/public/ind...id=&Issue_id=).
Stevens said he voted in favor of the bill even though it
contained an aviation user fee, according to KTUU.com
(http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp...nav=menu510_2),
because killing it would have forced discussion of FAA funding to
start all over again. "I don't like the user-fee concept, but the
way it's been worked out now, it is a fair thing," Stevens said.
Dee Hanson, executive director of the Alaska Airmen's Association,
told AVweb on Tuesday that while she appreciates Sen. Stevens'
work to exempt rural Alaskan aviators, she fears the expansion of
user fees both in Alaska and in the rest of the country. "Our
members also fly in the Lower 48," she said. "An exemption is a
temporary fix. We oppose changing how the FAA is funded over to a
user-fee basis, and the known fact is that user fees for IFR
services have the potential to erode safety. We will continue to
fight this."
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195309